In the art of shingle manufacture, shingles are generally packaged in bundles, with a cardboard kraft paper, a liner layer, a plastic film or a corrugated paper-based material or like wrapping material disposed about a given number of shingles.
However, aside from the shingles that are conventionally used in roofing, it has become desirable to provide specialty shingles, such as for use along hips, ridges, or rakes of a roof, with such specialty shingles being generally smaller in size than conventional roofing shingles.
In some installations, conventional roofing shingles are cut apart to form smaller shingles that are used on hips, ridges or rakes of a roof. However, the use of such portions of shingles does not provide an appearance that is as ornamental, with a finished look, as can be provided by the use of specialty shingles that are made specifically for the purpose of being used on hips, ridges, and/or rakes of roofs.
It is also sometimes desirable that specialty shingles may have variations in thickness that have to be accommodated in packaging. It is also desirable that sometimes specialty shingles are provided with a three-dimensional aspect, such as being pre-folded or pre-bent to accommodate included angles where there are intersecting surfaces of hips, ridges, and/or rakes of a roof, so that the specialty shingles do not have to be bent or folded at the site of application where, depending upon temperature conditions, they might otherwise develop cracks if they are bent or folded at the site of application. Because the shingles are already folded into a “V”-shape (or inverted “V”-shape) the installation of these shingles on a roof can be more efficiently and more effectively accomplished.
Examples of the packaging of shingles having a three-dimensional aspect in accordance with prior art techniques are set forth, for example, in U.S. Pat. Nos. 6,367,627 and 6,547,126. Insert structures for supporting the pre-folded specialty roofing materials in a package are also known as set forth in published patent application US2007/0267306 A1.
It would be advantageous to have an improved packaging for specialty shingles that assists in maintaining the shape of pre-formed specialty shingles during storage and handling of bundles, is useful for transport of specialty shingles to the work site and from the ground to the rooftop work area, and is more environmentally friendly and makes more efficient use of packaging materials.